Arbitrary boundaries, whether geographical or timewise, have existed for a long time and on the one hand, it is understandable that they serve a purpose, but in some cases they seem silly. I understand how we all are energized as we approach Fridays, looking forward to the weekend. In reality why does it because weekends are another couple of days. However, if I took a day off on Wednesday, it just doesn’t feel the same as a Saturday and Sunday, though it really shouldn’t. The same way, Jan 1 of every year is just like every other day. But we all think of it very differently and act that way.

Most of us set up new plans, predominant number of which fail within a few days. Why would we not do it on Feb 1? Or on one’s birthday? It is not the same. In that vein, I would like to look at what is in store for us in 2017, yet another new beginning!

Workday – This will continue to be the mother of all projects we have done in the last few years. We are very happy that we are on schedule to open up HR, benefits and payroll to the community on Wednesday, 1/4. We have verified all the data and tested the systems etc. But, as everyone knows, it is not the same as what you will find when you open the system up. We have a great support plan and we believe that it will serve our community well. We have already begun the plans for Finance implementation and we are moving forward towards opening it up on yet another boundary – July 1, 2017, the start of the new fiscal year.

Library Collections – A subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Library and Technology Policy and the Director of Library Collections have begun the process of looking at how we currently manage collections, how it is serving the needs of the community and develop general principles and a framework for us to follow in the years to come. This is an extremely important service we provide and is a critical component of teaching, learning and research in the liberal arts. We expect to have this wrapped up in Spring.

Registration – Based on community’s positive reaction to the home grown waitlist system and the burning desire on the part of both the students and the faculty to rethink how we do registration, another subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Library and Technology Policy has been discussing options we should explore. After viewing a demo of Workday Student, which has a strong academic planning module, we collectively feel that this is an area that will help us revamp the registration at the College. So, we expect to propose a plan in Spring to the community which will outline a plan for a prototype and then transitioning to Workday Student.

Instructional Technology Support – We will continue to strengthen the digital scholarship, makerspace and blended learning initiatives which have been welcomed by our faculty and students. This is an area where internal collaborations amongst various groups within LTS is working well and we will find ways to strengthen this even further. We also will be looking at an alternative to Sakai during the spring.

Infrastructure & Systems – Some of our disk infrastructure needs to be looked at because they will soon be not supported. However, with our planned aggressive transition to the cloud, we are thinking the best way to manage this rather expensive proposition. Obviously we cannot do without providing a significant amount of local storage, but how much and for how long is the key to making this purchasing decision. In addition, we need to do something drastically different in terms of classroom technology support. In all cases, we are looking at leasing options to have a more predictable annual expenditure for several years. We believe that with help from Cisco, we have stabilized wireless support for residence halls. We will also be looking at the various library systems with a fresh set of eyes to see if we have opportunities there to serve the community better.

Drupal – When we began the implementation of Drupal, we needed a security model that worked for us, but native Drupal did not provide it. Long story short, given that Drupal at its core promoted “openness”, the idea of an access model was an after thought. There were some budding options such as “Organic Groups“, but they were deemed inadequate, so we adopted a comprehensive security model from Amherst College called “Monster Menus“. It is a great product and has served us well, but it also has some barriers that are coming in the way of our ability to do business. We plan to wean ourselves from Monster Menus and I hope we will be able to do it in the Spring!

Analytics – We are going to continue the momentum that our team has built up in terms of building our own data structures (rather then relying on products) and easy access to data using Microsoft SQL Server and Power BI. We have demonstrated the ease with which this can be done for our alumnae biographical data. More are on the way. With the planned phasing out of Banner, we will also store historical data in this infrastructure. It is exciting!

There are obviously many many more initiatives that are being worked on and I just highlighted some of the major ones.

Wish you and yours a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!